India’s government has heaped pressure on RIM, giving it until the end of the month to enable monitoring of BlackBerry services before shutting applications down.
The government said the Canadian device vendor must work with local carriers to find a technical means of allowing security forces to read email and Messenger by August 31, or risk the two applications being blocked, WSJ.com reported.
It delivered the ultimatum to India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) yesterday, despite already gaining access to BlackBerry internet, voice and SMS services.
A meeting also took place between RIM management and home minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, WSJ.com said.
Up to a million subscribers in India own a BlackBerry device. The ban would reduce those users to voice and web access only, FT.com said.
RIM has stood strong against the demands, using a statement asserting that it would only allow access to the data in the case of national security situations, and only under judicial oversight.